Not using queen excluder - didn't seem to work

[mazzamazda]

I use a deep box similar to national 12x14, no queen excluders on any boxes. Out of 100 hives I used for honey last year only one queen laid in a super, up to 4 supers on. Our first big flow is late Feb early March and supers come off end of July.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

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Why to compare Cyprus to Finland?

Same as comparing Finland to the UK really

 

[Finman]

Same as comparing Finland to the UK really

Have I ever compared. I have only said that If I were in Wales, I would get 200 kg honey instead of 10,5 kg.

Really! I have studied geography in University. I am skilled to compare. If you cannot make difference, you are too old to learn. Let it be and do nothing.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I studied beef and dairy farming in technical college, so am an expert at identifying bullsh!t
And already after my few years beekeeping I know not to feed suspect honey back to the bees

 

[Finman]

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Bull ship social.
I learned to identyfy cow ship at the age of 1 year. I did not need to study in in college that.

I have never seen bull ship how it is different from cow ship.

 

[Obee1]

I studied beef and dairy farming in technical college, so am an expert at identifying bullsh!t
And already after my few years beekeeping I know not to feed suspect honey back to the bees

Ahem- didn't you mistake a swarm of bees for a cowpat (bullshit) only this week?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

fair comment - but it's better than vice versa and trying to scrape a steaming pile of sh!t into a skep and calling it beekeeping.
Ornithology isn't a strong subject either - often I've come on to the forum and mistaken a cuckoo for a beekeeper

 

[Finman]

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I do not mind about Jennins terms. We are different. We use in that meaning 'horse ship'.

 

[Thymallus]

I use a deep box similar to national 12x14, no queen excluders on any boxes. Out of 100 hives I used for honey last year only one queen laid in a super, up to 4 supers on. Our first big flow is late Feb early March and supers come off end of July.

Difficult to compare Portugal to UK. It was a cold spring here, Feb flows are as mythical as pure Amm's. Queens were laying where it was warmest, which if you had no queen excluders in was in the upper supers. Chaos reigned...for a while.

 

[Finman]

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Can we compare? That we are doing all the time. Comparing and selecting queens, good pastures, excluders, even mixing sugar to water!

If you do not use excluder, you may learn how natural instincts makes bees to act in the hive: Brood, polen stores, honey. Need of ventilation and warm-cold places in the hive.

With that apparatus the excluder you force bees to do impossible things. Without excluder bees would give a feed back that you nurse your hives totally wrong. Cold weathers and life between mesh floor and excluder. Big broblem is te, if bees bring nectar into hive: What they are doing now! They are messing nice order!

British beekeepers have never heard about system, what most Finnish professional beekeepers use. They keep hive without excluder first half of summer and on later half they restrict laying into one langstroth box.

 

[Norton]

You cannot compare Finland with Cyprus or the UK.

All beekeeping is local and as you have mentioned, even 5km can make all the difference.

But I do doubt very much that you would ever be able to produce the crops you used to, in the UK, even with your system.

Professional beekeepers are highly mobile here. I cannot imagine them loading 3 brood boxes high with supers from flow to flow. Some of the trucks take 85 hives in a single layer.

When the citrus starts dropping blossom they have to get out of the orchards as fast as possible to avoid any spray hits.

 

[Finman]

But I do doubt very much that you would ever be able to produce the crops you used to, in the UK, even with your system.

Professional beekeepers are highly mobile here. .

i am mobile here too and second thing is that here are no other beekeepers. I can select oastures without other bees.

It is very clear , that I cannot get good yields in UK, because good yields come from pastures. Not from systems or from hives. If pastures are over grazed, no one get yield from there.

It is really ridiculous to draw Cyprus to this debating, that I cannot compare. Of course I an compare, because I am not idiot. Only idiots cannot compare things.

I have visited 6 times in England, and I did not see any so difficult what I do not understand.

I have learned high quality beekeeping from USA, Canada and from Australia, NZ and even from Egypt. I can select what information I adapt into beejeeping.

If my hves bring honey in one week 50 kg, and in UK thise figures are best yields, it tells that oastures are poor.

When I started beekeeping in practice 49 years ago, I bought swarms. I joined them to 4 kg swarms, which occupyed 2 langstroth boxes. Then 4 weeks later I added a third box.
All those swarms brought 40 kg honey and they drew 3 boxes foundations. Best brought 60 kg.
It was year 1966 when I made 18 hives and filled them with swarms what I bought from other beekeepers.
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It just tell how good pastures I have here. With two bix hive 40 kg honey.

But in my home yard bees got nothing in July. So I moved my hives 15 km from home. It is same in my cottage yard. If I move 17 km my hives, I may get 100 kg/hive or if I move to wrong okace, I get nothig


It is not difficult to learn.

 

[Finman]

You cannot compare Finland with Cyprus or the UK.

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Of course I can....

My system? Good queens, big hives, good pastures.

 

[Norton]

You are forgetting an important component - the weather.

 

[Ely]

Beekeeping skills alone are not going to obtain those huge yields if it is cold and raining most of the spring/summer.

 

[Finman]

You are forgetting an important component - the weather.

Oh dear! Weather. I remembered water, but it was weather! Thanks to remind me.

 

[Finman]

Beekeeping skills alone are not going to obtain those huge yields if it is cold and raining most of the spring/summer.

Yes, I have looked English and Irish weathers again this summer. 15C and under 20c. We had very same weather this summer.

We had up to 15.7. very cold 3 weeks ago I was desperate that I get nothing this year. In June and July Finland got every single day rain somewhere in the country. And quess what, where rains came from.... From British Isles! Only one rain came from Ice Ocean.

We are so different: another sends rain and another gets it. Not fair.

This year our yield will be half of normal. Last year it was double.

 

[Ely]

Oh well, I enjoy long walks in the rain because no one else is around. Here's to a better season next year!

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

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Can we compare? That we are doing all the time. Comparing and selecting queens, good pastures, excluders, even mixing sugar to water!

If you do not use excluder, you may learn how natural instincts makes bees to act in the hive: Brood, polen stores, honey. Need of ventilation and warm-cold places in the hive.

With that apparatus the excluder you force bees to do impossible things. Without excluder bees would give a feed back that you nurse your hives totally wrong. Cold weathers and life between mesh floor and excluder. Big broblem is te, if bees bring nectar into hive: What they are doing now! They are messing nice order!

British beekeepers have never heard about system, what most Finnish professional beekeepers use. They keep hive without excluder first half of summer and on later half they restrict laying into one langstroth box.

I did OK without excluder last year but have cheated this year with one on all my big colonies just because finding a Q in six national deeps is too much for me. It SEEMS like the crop is about the same. Maybe I'll try a few either way next year.

 

[Finman]

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Oh dear.... Conclusions from one hive and one year. That promises a great future as a beekeeper.

What means Q in six deeps? What is Q